{"id":13876,"date":"2025-12-26T19:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T19:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13876"},"modified":"2025-12-26T19:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T19:37:10","slug":"celebrating-the-wrong-jesus-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13876","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the wrong Jesus of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"


By Robin Schumacher<\/span><\/span>, Exclusive Columnist Wednesday, December 24, 2025<\/span>Unsplash\/Greyson Joralemon<\/span><\/p>\n

When I became a Christian at age 19, I was kind of a mess, doctrinally speaking, especially where my view of Jesus was concerned.<\/p>\n

Did I believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Check. My Savior? Check. Crucified and rose from the dead? Of course.<\/p>\n

But I did not, at the time, understand that Jesus is God or get the doctrine of the Trinity. I thought \u201cSon of God\u201d meant that Jesus was somewhat less than God the Father, pretty much like the Jehovah Witnesses teach when they\u00a0retranslate\u00a0the first verse of the Gospel of John in their rewritten bible to be: \u201cThe Word was in the beginning with God and was a god,\u201d instead of the true translation which is: \u201cIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God\u201d (John 1:1).<\/p>\n

To them, Jesus is a \u201cmighty god\u201d but not God Almighty; He\u2019s the first direct creation and made all other things for God. They follow in the footsteps of the heretical 3rd-century teacher\u00a0Arius, who caused such a stir with that teaching that the Emperor\u00a0Constantine\u00a0called an assembly of bishops (the\u00a0First Council of Nicaea) to deal with it, which ended up condemning Arius’s doctrine and formulating\u00a0the original\u00a0Nicene Creed of 325.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thankfully, I found my way to the truth of Jesus\u2019 person through the direction of the Holy Spirit, and came to understand what \u201cSon of God\u201d meant \u2014 something Thomas Aquinas summarizes well in his\u00a0commentary on John: \u201cIt is also clear that since in every nature that which issues forth and has a likeness to the nature from which it issues is called a son, and since this Word issues forth in a likeness and identity to the nature from which it issues, it is suitable and appropriately called a \u201cSon … We call him \u2018Son\u2019 to show that He is of the same nature as the Father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once that sank in for me, I became so excited that I took a yellow dry marker and went through the entire Bible, highlighting the places that referenced Jesus\u2019 divinity (which are all still there in my current Bible). And there\u2019s a lot more yellow than most people think.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many professing Christians still don\u2019t comprehend the true and eternal nature of Christ. For example, a Lifeway Research article just a few years ago\u00a0notes:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn relation to Christmas itself, there\u2019s confusion about Jesus\u2019 eternality. While 80% of Americans say Jesus is the Son of God the Father and 72% say the birth of Jesus is a historical fact, only 41% believe the Son of God existed before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Even among Evangelicals, just 65% agree \u2026 More than half of Americans (55%) say Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God, according to the 2022 State of Theology study. What\u2019s worse, Evangelicals are more likely to agree (73%) and have been more likely to agree since the first State of Theology study in 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yikes. That means there are a lot of people out there celebrating the wrong Jesus this Christmas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s you, then let me provide some biblical truths to consider where Jesus\u2019 personhood is concerned. While I can take you to many passages that speak to the true Jesus of Christmas, let me go to the one that firmly settles the matter.<\/p>\n

I AM<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the eighth chapter of John\u2019s Gospel, Jesus just told the Pharisees that the devil is their father (which I\u2019m sure went over well) and goes on to say that if they were like their beloved patriarch, Abraham, they would feel much differently towards Him. John records what happens next, starting with Jesus saying: \u201cYour father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.\u201d So, the Jews said to him, \u201cYou are not yet 50-years-old, and have you seen Abraham?\u201d Jesus said to them, \u201cTruly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.\u201d So, they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple\u201d (John 8:56\u201359).<\/p>\n

What?<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 shocking attempted stoning isn\u2019t actually shocking (and wasn’t the first \u2014 see John 5:18) because He had just claimed equality with God by using the name for Himself that God conveyed to Moses back in the book of Exodus: \u201cThen Moses said to God, \u201cBehold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, \u2018The God of your fathers has sent me to you.\u2019 Now they may say to me, \u2018What is His name?\u2019 What shall I say to them?\u201d God said to Moses, \u201cI AM WHO I AM\u201d; and He said, \u201cThus you shall say to the sons of Israel, \u2018I AM has sent me to you\u2019\u201d (Ex. 3:13\u201314).<\/p>\n

The Hebrew word\u00a0hayah<\/em>\u00a0used in the passage for \u201cI AM\u201d means \u201cto be,\u201d is represented by the consonants YHWH (Yahweh), with the technical theological term being the\u00a0tetragrammaton<\/em>, the personal, ineffable name of God in Scripture. Theologians explain the core of it as communicating that while many things can\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0existence, only one thing can\u00a0be<\/em>\u00a0existence.<\/p>\n

And Jesus said that\u2019s Him.<\/p>\n

That frying pan in the face of the Pharisees was just one of more to come, including: \u201cTherefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins\u201d (John 8:24); \u201cI and the Father are one\u201d (John 10:30); \u201cAnyone who has seen Me has seen the Father\u201d (John 14:9); \u201cFather glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world began\u201d (John 17:5, cf. \u201cI am the Lord that is My name! I will not give My glory to another\u201d \u2014 Isaiah 42:8).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Add to those statements the things Jesus did such as accepting worship nine times in the Gospels, forgiving sins (Mark 2), telling His followers to pray in His name (John 16:23-24), saying He was Lord of the Sabbath (which God created; Mark 2:28), commanding followers to be baptized in His name (Matthew 28), and unlike other prophets before Him, never saying \u201cThus says the Lord,\u201d but rather \u201cI say.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the true Jesus of Christmas.<\/p>\n

C. S. Lewis highlights what a bombshell His God-Man claim was to those back in His day when he\u00a0writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean, that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world Who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus went \u201cabout talking as if He was God\u201d because He is. Don\u2019t let that critical fact escape you this Christmas. John MacArthur\u00a0puts it\u00a0simply: \u201cYou know something?\u00a0If God became a man, He would be Jesus and He was. And that\u2019s the whole meaning of Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robin Schumacher is an accomplished software executive and Christian apologist who has written many articles, authored and contributed to several Christian books, appeared on nationally syndicated radio programs, and presented at apologetic events. He holds a BS in Business, Master’s in Christian apologetics and a Ph.D. in New Testament. His latest book is, A Confident Faith: Winning people to Christ with the apologetics of the Apostle Paul.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Robin Schumacher, Exclusive Columnist Wednesday, December 24, 2025Unsplash\/Greyson Joralemon When I became a Christian at age 19, I was kind of a mess, doctrinally speaking, especially where my view of Jesus was concerned. Did I believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Check. My Savior? Check. Crucified and rose from the dead? Of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[2984,813,481,3840],"class_list":{"0":"post-13876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-celebrating","9":"tag-christmas","10":"tag-jesus","11":"tag-wrong"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}